Page 113 of Lady and the Hitman

I forced a breath, fighting the way my body betrayed me every time he got like this. “Can’t we just enjoy tonight?”

He stared at me for a long beat, then leaned back slowly. “You’re still afraid.”

“I’m still figuring it out.”

His jaw flexed, but he didn’t push.

The tension between us stretched like wire, taut and glittering. Everything felt amplified in this cocoon of candlelight—the weight of his gaze, the brush of my knee against his under the table, the sheer impossibility of what I was doing.

What we were doing.

He didn’t belong in my world.

“Do you always get what you want?” I asked, half to distract myself, half because I needed to know.

His smile was slow and dangerous. “Eventually.”

“And what is it you want, exactly?”

“You know the answer to that.”

I swallowed. “Do I?”

He leaned in again, closer now, the shadows playing across his cheekbones like a painter’s brush. “I want you.”

The words were absolute.

I looked down at my glass, then back at him. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know you check the news before you brush your teeth. I know you type fast and read slow. I know your body flushes here”—his fingertip ghosted the inside of his wrist—“when you want something you think you shouldn’t.”

My breath caught.

“I know you sleep with one leg out of the covers,” he said softly. “And you always leave a light on.”

I stared at him, stunned.

“How—”

“I notice things.”

“You watch me.”

He didn’t deny it.

“And what do you do,” I asked, voice trembling with something I didn’t want to name, “when you’re not watching me?”

That got a flicker of something behind his eyes. Something sharp.

“I work,” he said simply.

“At what?”

He poured more wine. “Private consulting.”

“For?”

“Selective clients.”